In his farewell address, President Eisenhower mentions the dangers of 'misplaced power' by the new military-industrial complex and huge federal research grants replacing curiosity of solitary inventors. Paul Stamets, entrepreneur and recipient of the AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador award, surely helps to alleviate Eisenhower's fears.

From the MSA website:"The purpose of the Wasson Award is to recognize people with non-traditional academic backgrounds who have made outstanding contributions to the field of mycology, or who have widely transmitted significant scientific or aesthetic knowledge about fungi to the general public. Nominees for the award will be judged on the basis of the impact and quality of their contributions and on their sustained commitment to the field of mycology."

According to MSA's newsletter, Inoculum, Stamets designed his own curriculum at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, under the guidance of Michael Beug and became a self-taught mycologist. He authored his first two books at Evergreen, Psilocybe Mushrooms and their Allies and The Mushroom Cultivator. Stamets' most popular book, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, is the #1 best seller among mushroom books on Amazon and has been cited 740 times on Google Scholar.

When presenting the award, Mycological Society of America president Jean Lodge describes Stamets' importance to the field of mycology:
​"Anytime I get on a plane and I sit down next to somebody and explain that I work on fungi, there is always this... Do you know? Do you know? And the fill-in-the-blank is always Paul Stamets.

Paul has done more for recruiting young mycologists into graduate programs, I think, than all of us sitting in professional jobs. He is just so good at outreach and getting people enthused....He's contributed a tremendous amount to our field."
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​In this video from the first Psychoactivity Conference: A Multi-Disciplinary Conference on Plants, Shamanism & States of Consciousness in Amsterdam, Stamets described the story of the MSA Wasson Award's namesake, R. Gordon Wasson. Stamets shared the stage that year with Albert Hofmann, Christian Raetsch, Alex Grey, Giorgio Samorini, and other pioneers.

"Mushroom mycelium represents rebirth, rejuvenation, regeneration. Fungi generate soil, that gives life. The task that we face today is to understand the language of nature.

My mission is to discover the language of nature of the fungal networks that communicate with the ecosystem. And I, in particular believe nature is intelligent.
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The fact that we lack the language skills to communicate with nature does not impugn the concept that nature is intelligent, it speaks to our inadequacy of our skill-set for communication.
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We have now learned that there are these languages that are occurring in communication between each organism. If we don’t get our act together and come in commonality and understanding with the organisms that sustain us today, not only will we destroy those organisms, but we will destroy ourselves.

We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. What will it take to achieve that? If I die trying but I'm inadequate to the task to make a course change in the evolution of life on this planet, OK, I tried. The fact is, I tried. How many people are not trying?

If you knew that every breath you took could save hundreds of lives in the future having walked down this path of knowledge would you run down that path of knowledge as fast as you could?

I believe nature is a force of Good. Good is not only a concept, it is a spirit...and so, hopefully, the spirit of goodness will survive."
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